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bonch writes "Google-owned Motorola is asking the International Trade Commission to ban every Apple device that uses iMessage, based on a patent issued in 2006 for 'a system for providing continuity between messaging clients.' Motorola also claims that banning Macs and iPhones won't have an impact on U.S. consumers. They say, 'With so many participants in the highly competitive Wireless communication, portable music, and computer market, it is unlikely that consumers would experience much of an impact if the requested exclusion orders were obtained.' The ITC has yet to make a decision."

I believe the consensus is that Google acquired Motorola largely for its patents so it could counter-sue Apple and anybody else who has been aggressively suing Android products as a more or less defensive measure. If Google won't show that it'll fight back, Apple and anybody else who wants to will sue Android, or Android manufacturers, into oblivion.

It has been solidly proven that Apple copied every else on the iPhone, stop repeating the same lies over and over and over again. This is not an Apple political forum. The patents were bullshit and everybody knows it, simply a straight up delaying tactic to keep competing products out of the market for as long as possible. You are not seeing the counter business tactic, cripple Apple's access to the market to accelerate 'competing', read that. 'competing' products access to the market. It's all about consumer choice not some bullshit Apple monopoly.

That's because it never got that far - the manufacturers to date simply caved in before it got to court.

OTOH, I can assure you that a metric ton of money is moving in Redmond's direction, and it makes Android just that less of a viable option (plus it forces the makers to make and sell the competing WP-loaded phones).

Here's the trick: Google doesn't need Apple to survive. They do however require the handset makers to keep using Android to make any money (at least in the mobile field). So who would you go after first - a competitor who took out a couple of models from one of your clients over look-and-feel (a design patent issue), or would you go after the guys who are raping the very makers that you need to continue using your products?

Put it this way: would you go after the fox who occasionally gets a chicken from one farm's henhouse, or try and do something about the locust swarm that's currently eating into all of the crops in the county?

I do find these homophobic analogies odd. Are people here really so limited with their descriptive abilities that this is the best we can come up with?

I'm Canuck. We used to have nothing but "Newfie" (Newfoundlanders) jokes going on around here. They disappeared and were replaced with "Polack" (Polish) jokes, then there were the Biafran,... then I can't remember what came next.

Yes, it's all very stupid. "Homos" are just today's flavour/stars. Me, I prefer Russia's black humour. That's great stuff.

Unless Google fights back, Apple will topple them. Pacifism is neat in theory, but it won't get you far in the business world. Google is guilty of nothing but self defense. If Apple stops trying to get Motorola phones banned and Google continues, THEN you can say they are guilty.

I just think it's bullshit to complain about Apple's abuse of patents because they seek to ban SOME devices from ONE manufacturer, while Google seeks to prevent the sale of EVERY Apple computer and iOS device.

I was expecting more knowledge and intelligence from a prolific Apple fan follower and poster. Maybe I was wrong.

Ok, I really meant to say successfully banned a few devices from one maker. None of those other things went anywhere.

Wait, so did Googorola successfully ban all Macs, iPhones and iPads according to the RTFA which is why you are getting so riled up about Google?

Not to mention that many of those Apple requests for injunctions are still pending and awaiting trials/judgements.

But that's being pedantic; fine, I'll say Apple is is attempting to ban every Android device form shipping just to make things easy.

So then, that puts them on parity with Google's level of evil.

Now can we complain about BOTH companies equally please an the patent law itself that enables this?

Sorry, no. Before Apple started suing the Android OEMs, there was a detente among them. Apple shot first, breaking the de facto peace between themselves and HTC/Samsung/Motorola.

If Microsoft sued Apple tomorrow over a kernel patent over iOS/OS X and Apple sued them back with 100 patents to retaliate because they think they might lose, you think they BOTH MS and Apple deserve equal blame because "the patent law itself enables this"?

I guess that's one of the risks if your company chooses to focus on creating and pushing absolutely identical clones of one product, instead of providing a range of devices with different options and hardware from competing manufacturers...it's an all the eggs = one basket kinda t'ing. If your device violates a patent...all your devices are likely to violate the same patent in the same way.

I don't understand your argument. Samsung has lots of products, not just absolutely identical clones of the iPhone and iPad.

Umm...sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm saying that Apple has a product line with absolutely no diversity allowed wherever possible, so naturally if their product violates one patent, the rest of their products are very likely to violate it as well. That's why Google can cry patent infringement across the entirety of the Appleverse, while Apple could only pick on a single product line from a particular manufacturer (more or less).

I am tired of this constant meme although I am not a big fan of Google.

What Google is doing is perfectly right from a moral, legal and commercial perspective. Apple started suing Android makers first(though Motorola beat them to the punch by a few weeks with a lawsuit and request for a declaration that it didn't infringe certain Apple patents after talks broke down). If Apple gets an injunction against Motorola for their silly patents over multitouch etc., Motorola will have to either stop selling handsets or pay $30 per phone which will kill their phones. Why should they not retaliate so that they have a chance of a negotiated settlement if that happens?

Also, big companies like Apple must be taught a lesson that if you start litigating, you should expect no mercy from the companies you're suing exploiting the exact same legal loopholes. If that's not done, other companies(except NPEs) will not think twice before suing competitors. Why should Google unilaterally disarm again? Just because they're your favorite company is for once on the receiving end of the same shit it is flinging all over everyone else? Motorola is not suing Samsung, HTC etc. here, but Apple is. Go figure out why

Looking at the history of the companies, can you present a alternative that would allow Google to compete against Apple when Apple keeps stifling innovation through abusing the patent system? The last 5 years have been full of Apple abusing patents to stifle other companies.

Any in case, there motivation doesn't matter because this is win-win long term for the consumer.The are successful, and a lot of people start looking at the patent system.They loose, and future similar suits will be weaker.

I had video chat on my Nokia N900 in 2010. Worked great too, integrated seamlessly into the OS. Even without skype there have been video conferencing standards around for a long time and implementing them on a mobile phone is obvious and hardly innovation.

Stop this bullshit and direct your lawyers to lobby to change the laws on software patents instead.

Google is doing all of the following:1) Lobbying against the existing software patent regime,2) Working very hard (e.g., via amicus filings in cases to which it is not a party) to get the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to stop blatantly ignoring Supreme Court decisions (particularly, Bilski) limiting patentability under the existing patent laws, so that patents that are invalid -- under the standards set by the Supreme Court interpreting existing law -- don't keep getting upheld by the Federal Circuit, and3) Using its existing patent portfolio against Apple so long as the existing patent regime is in place, and given that Apple started the patent war against Android.

Given the existing patent situation -- both the laws on the books and the way the federal courts apply them -- Google will be foolish not to aggressively use its patent portfolio against firms that are aggressively using their own portfolios against Google and Google partners, even while they are working to reshape the rules in a way which would eliminate or vastly reduce the opportunity for such warfare.

Not to take away from anything you said, but Google also very secretly invested in Intellectual Ventures(yes that Intellectual Ventures that Slashdot hates, founded by Paul Allen), which unfortunately for them, came out in a court filing

Not to take away from anything you said, but Google also very secretly invested in Intellectual Ventures(yes that Intellectual Ventures that Slashdot hates, founded by Paul Allen), which unfortunately for them, came out in a court filing

You didn't link the original source. Unfortunately for you I found it [patentlyo.com].

For the most part, these tech companies appear to have invested in intellectual ventures as part of a licensing agreement.... Google...

Yeah, I know the situation is complicated, and I'm glad that (it sounds like) Google is doing something. The whole thing is just incredibly frustrating, and given that I want to start a business some day (possibly soon) and that the situation for a bit player is much grimmer if you happen to implement the wrong feature that's listed among the thousands of active patents in existence, I can't help but be a little angry about the whole thing. Were software patents not being granted, we could be years ahead

Apple, on the other hand, sued over rounded corners and icons in a grid. (You know, something my Samsung phone used in 2005. Long before the iPhone was released.)

This is, yet again, about actual technology, and not rounded corners. From the patent brief it sounds kind of silly (it sounds like they're talking about being logged into a chat with the same account via multiple clients), but it's still actual technology and not just "we arranged icons that contain rounded corners in a grid and so did they." It's hardly the same thing as Apple is doing.

I don't think anyone can out-evil Apple in this patent war. Apple hasn't invented a damned thing in the mobile space, but they've managed to patent the ridiculous since they're unable to compete on actual merit.

I'm interested to know how it is you see Apple as firing first. Because... well, they didn't.

Actually, they did; they fired at Android device manufacturers. The major ones were HTC and then Samsung. While with Apple the hardware and software pieces of the ecosystem are all in the same company, with Android the handset manufacturers and the mobile OS developer are separate companies (but they depend on each other with regard to the success of Android products).

Until software patents are simply gone... then this would be the correct response, I think. "Okay, Apple, if you want to start suing based on these silly patents, we'll sue you, too."

Who started it *does* matter. Bully picks a fight in school? I would not stand there and be beaten to pulp. I would fight back. It *does* matter who started it, because actions based on unprovoked aggression vs. those same actions in self defense are significantly different.

How is this different? If the courts rule that iMessage does actually violate this patent... then wouldn't all of those devices you listed, in fact, violate it? Just as Apple was seeking injunctions against Samsung devices that they claimed infringed.

Apple's "Patent" was actually a design patent, all about the whole look and feel. Apple only sued one company over it. And yet the Apple suit spawned countless discussions about the evils of software patents in general and Apple's use of them to destroy the whole market.

Do you have ANY clue of what you're spouting here? Hard to believe you're that ignorant, I am starting to think you're not an Apple fan but a troll at this point.

Pray, tell us which of these are design patents? And why are they suing HTC? Also, I am ignoring all the tens of court cases they have filed with things like multitouch, slide to unlock etc. etc. Not to mention they won on multitouch and the scrolling patent in the Samsung case, how are they design patents? What are you smoking?

This is an interface patent granted in 2008 -- it's not specifically related to phones. According to the claims, it's a method of moving a GUI object along a path with a non-constant velocity for a period of time -- one of the claims specifically covers minimizing windows with a scaling effect like OS X, and two others describe a row of icons that rearranges itself when icons are added or removed, just like the iPhone's app dock.

We did this one at length after it was issued in January of last year -- check out our Palm discussion for more. The big one here is scroll behavior: starting a scroll in a single direction locks you in that direction, but starting it at an angle lets you pan around freely -- just like the Android browser.

Patent #7,657,849: Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image

This one's cute 'cause it's brand new -- seriously, it was just granted on February 2. It's almost exactly what it says on the tin: it covers unlocking a touchscreen device by moving an unlock image. It's broad enough for us to say that it covers virtually every unlock behavior we've seen on phones, not just the iPhone's slide-to-unlock implementation.

Yep, we covered this 2008 patent in our Palm piece too -- well remembered, friends. Jump back to that for the full details, but the executive summary is that it covers the iPhone's distinctive scroll-back-and-bounce behavior.

Patent #5,920,726: System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device

Granted in 1999, this patent is surprisingly broad -- it flatly covers managing power in a digital camera device to a power manager that sends state information to a processor controlling the camera.

Patent #7,633,076: Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices

This was issued in October of 2009, and it's really quite specific: it covers a phone with multitouch input, a proximity sensor, and an ambient light sensor, which allows input when the sensors indicate one condition and doesn't allow input in others. In simple terms? It's how the iPhone shuts off the touchscreen when you hold it to your ear, a scenario that's specifically called out in the claims.

The year was 1998, and times were lean in Cupertino. Steve Jobs had just returned to Apple, and although the company's fortunes were turning with the introduction of the iMac, it was clear that a true breakout was needed. "We have the answer!" cried William A. Garnder and Stephan V. Schell, two of the company's employees. "We'll develop an an apparatus

the whole patent system is going to come crashing down. The way these companies are going, it will not take much longer before people start realizing the current system is no longer viable. Maybe a decade or so, but not much more.

I humbly submit a correction. All the FAT PIGS with huge moneybags for legal combat will tend to end at a standoff, but all the garage innovators will be shit out of luck. That is not a desirable outlook for the economy. Small and micro business is the lifeblood of an economy, and represents the hopes and dreams of the individual.

The way these companies are going, it will not take much longer before people start realizing the current system is no longer viable.

Google's position -- even before Apple started filing the lawsuits against Android manufacturers that were the opening shot in the Apple-Google patent war -- was that the current patent regime, particularly in regards to software patents, was harmful to innovation and unmaintainable.

OTOH, Google -- as they are trying to run a business that has to operate in the real world -- d

The Patent system is Federal. Good luck making that a talking point for candidates for Congress or President. They will snear at it and say they are going to focus on "jobs" or "national security" or how evil the other guy is. Completely ignoring how the patent system is costing us jobs and the eventual demise of small/medium businesses in America.

If this was "made public" today, why is there so [androidauthority.com] many [eweek.com] articles [appleinsider.com] from August 20th, when it was submitted? This is total bullshit, posted by Ars, just to try and get publicity with the iPhone 5 release tomorrow.

And for the record, I am not an Apple apologist, and I own a Galaxy S3. But I mean, bullshit is bullshit.

This looks like the long-rumoured Google fightback against Apple. Google have come under criticism (rightly so IMO) for allowing its partners to be in the frontline against Apple's patent trolling. I think Google have several other Motorola patents that they can follow up with.

Perhaps Apple will see sense and start to realise that it didn't invent the smartphone. The ideal solution is for everyone to stop suing everyone else and for fair licensing of real patents and an end to patenting the bleeding obvious. But somehow I feel that isn't gonna happen..

Both sides arm their lawyers with axes, maces, and bows. Meet on the field of battle. HAVE AT THEE! Televised of course with the proceeds going to the "iPhones for Orphans" or "Andriods for Amputees". No armor allowed, only 3 piece suits.

Motorola is saying, "Either Apple has such a stranglehold on consumer choice that to remove them is to remove the market, proving that they must be in an anti-competitive position OR removing them from the market wouldn't hurt the market because there are enough viable alternatives so don't judge this based on whether banning iDevices would harm consumers."

I think that's a beautiful argument and I can't wait to see how the court weasels out of the proposed dilemma.

The patent tries to turn something obvious into something non-obvious by starting with a flawed implementation and then trying to remove the flaw. Here's their obviously flawed approach: Various devices connect to a communication server. Each device gives the communication server the user identification of the user currently using the device. When the user starts using a different device, the first device must be disconnected and then the second device must be connected to the communication server. And doing that is apparently worth a patent.

However, it is obvious that it's not a device connecting to the communication server, but a user. And the user just temporarily uses some device, and tells the communication server which device that is, but can obviously at any point in time tell the communication server that they are now using a different device. Totally obvious.

Friendly advice, if you want to be able to retain your geek card, you'd better be able to recognize any major quote from Wargames.

What makes you think GP didn't realize the quote was from Wargames? Movie quotes are only clever though if they have some pertinence to the issue at hand, which in this case is MAD as applied to patent portfolios. In this game, there really is no winning move, which is his point.

Of course, this goes to show how ridiculous the original quote was, too. If by "don't play" they meant "don't stockpile nuclear weapons", the result would be the same as here: one country would cease to exist.

I would say it's more of a way to get Apple to lay off suing Android device manufacturers for patent violation. If you have enough ammo in your patent war chest, no one's going to take pot shots at you. Certainly worked for IBM, anyways.

I don't know if this move is at least in a little part an attempt to get Apple to back off on suing Samsung (is that bit about an Apple device ban not effecting US consumers lifted from Apple v Samsung comments?), but it might do so anyways.

Not really. Apple made the case that this was all a part of their trade dress, and their design patents are meant to protect their trade dress so they were a very integral part of the case. The way Samsung spins it, you'd think the case was all about rounded rectangles.

Christ, can't we just start shooting all the lawyers and get this over with? The whole thing is an increasingly mad dash to innovation armageddon. I think no patent system at all would be better than the absurdities of this.

Christ, can't we just start shooting all the lawyers and get this over with? The whole thing is an increasingly mad dash to innovation armageddon. I think no patent system at all would be better than the absurdities of this.

Lawyers are the symptom, not the cause.

Shoot the MBA's who decide suing over patents is a good business model. And make sure you aim for the head even though they'll live for 9 days without it.

Except that the goals Apple has set out for its lawyers would result in effectively zero consumer choice. If you've ever read Peter Hamilton's "Commonwealth Saga" [wikipedia.org] surely you would draw parallels to the Prime...

No, they can't. The patents in question with cable are FRAND, so at most, Apple might be forced to pay a small tithe.

Google has not hesitated to sue and try to get injunctions based on FRAND patents in the past, unlike Apple.

[citation needed]

And remember, that's Google we're looking for a citation on, not Motorola Mobility from times before Google bought them. Some of us DO have long-term memories longer than the last Apple product announcement and remember that Google has not owned Motorola Mobility for long at all, which is why we're confused and want clarification.

They don't let you introduce your technology in to a standard like this unless you agree to make it available to everyone. Perhaps in the future, IEEE should require people to turn over their patents as a condition for inclusion in order to prevent this kind of nonsense.

"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."

Seems to me Apple basically want to own the "x" on a touch screen device space, and would greatly prefer if other phone makers stuck to dumbphones, permanently.